as a sense of well-being, a satisfying relationship, or a meaningful career. Patients are in conflict about want- ing to accomplish these things. This is because they suffer from pathogenic beliefs that tell them that by moving toward their goals they will endanger them- selves or others. Throughout therapy, patients work with the therapist to change these beliefs and to reach their forbidden goals. They work to disprove their pathogenic beliefs by testing them in relation to the therapist, hoping that the therapist will pass their tests. In addition, patients use therapist interventions and in- terpretations to realize that their pathogenic beliefs are false, and a poor guide to behavior. The therapist’s task is to help patients in their efforts to disprove their path- ogenic beliefs and to move toward their goals. II. THEORETICAL BASES As our research and the research of academic psy- chologists have demonstrated, people perform many of the same functions unconsciously that they perform consciously. They unconsciously assess reality, think, and make and carry out decisions and plans. They un- consciously ward off mental contents, such as memo- ries, motives, affects, and ideas, as long as they consider them dangerous. They unconsciously permit such con- tents to become conscious when they unconsciously de- cide that they may safely experience them. Patients develop the pathogenic beliefs, which under- lie their psychopathology, usually in early childhood, through traumatic experiences with parents and sib- lings. These beliefs, which are about reality and morality, may be extremely powerful. This is because for the in- fant and young child, parents are absolute authorities whom the infant or the young children needs in order to survive. Young children are highly motivated to main- tain their all-important attachments to their parents. In order to do this they must believe their parents’ teach- ings are valid, and that the ways their parents treat them are appropriate. For example, a young boy, who experi- enced himself as neglected by his parents, developed the pathogenic belief that he would and should be neg- lected, not only by his parents, but also by others. The strength of children’s attachments to their par- ents, and of the pathogenic beliefs acquired in their re- lations to their parents, is shown by the observation that adults, who in therapy are attempting to give up their pathogenic beliefs, often feel disloyal to their par- ents. If adult patients believe they have surpassed their parents by giving up the maladaptive beliefs and behav- iors that they learned from their parents, and by acquir- ing more of the good things of life than their parents, they are likely to experience survivor guilt (surpassing guilt) to their parents. III. THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS The therapeutic process is the process by which pa- tients work with their therapists to change their patho- genic beliefs and to pursue the goals forbidden by these beliefs. Patients test their pathogenic beliefs by trial ac- tions (usually verbal) that according to their beliefs should affect the therapist in a particular way. They hope that the therapist will not react as the beliefs pre- dict. If the therapist does not, they may take a small step toward disproving the beliefs. If patients experi- ence the therapist as passing their tests, they will feel safer with the therapist, and they will immediately change in the following ways: 1. They will become less anxious. 2. They will become bolder. 3. They will become more insightful. Patients in therapy work in accordance with a simple unconscious plan that tells them which problems to tackle and which ones to defer. In making their plans, patients are concerned with many things, especially with avoiding danger. For example, a female patient who unconsciously believed that she had to comply with male authorities lest she hurt them, felt endan- gered by her therapy with a male therapist. She feared that she would have to accept poor interpretations or follow bad advice. Her plan for the opening days of therapy was to reassure herself against this danger. She tested her belief that she would hurt the therapist if she disagreed with him. First she tested indirectly, then progressively more directly. The therapist passed her tests; he was not upset, and after about 6 months’ time the patient had largely overcome her fear of complying with the therapist, and so became relatively comfort- able and cooperative. IV. THE THERAPIST’S APPROACH The therapist’s task is to help patients disprove their pathogenic beliefs and move toward their goals. The therapist’s attempts to accomplish this are case-spe- cific. They depend on the therapist’s assessments of the 546 Control-Mastery Theory patient’s particular beliefs and goals, and the patient’s ways of testing his or her pathogenic beliefs. For ex- ample, if a patient’s primary pathogenic belief is that he or she will be rejected, the therapist might be help- ful if he or she is friendly and accepting. If the patient’s primary pathogenic belief is that he or she will be in- truded upon, or possessed by the therapist, the thera- pist may be helpful by being unintrusive. V. EMPIRICAL STUDIES (INCLUDING STUDIES OF THE PATIENT’S PLAN FORMULATION) The San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group (formerly the Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group) was founded in 1972 by Harold Sampson and Joseph Weiss to investigate and develop the control- mastery theory by formal empirical research methods. A number of our studies were carried out on the tran- scripts of the analysis of Mrs. C, which had been recorded and transcribed for research purposes. Several of these studies were designed to test our assumption that patients unconsciously control the coming forth of unconscious mental contents, bringing them to con- sciousness when they unconsciously decide that they may safely do so. In one such study, Suzanne Gassner, using as data the transcripts of the first hundred sessions of Mrs. C’s analysis, tested our hypothesis against two alternative hypotheses. According to one alternative, the patient brings forth repressed unconscious contents when the contents (in this case impulses) are frustrated, and so intensified to the point that they push through the pa- tients’ defenses to consciousness. According to the other alternative, the patient brings forth repressed contents when they are disguised to the point that they escape the forces of repression. The three hypotheses may be tested against one another because they make different predictions about what patients feel, while previously repressed contents that have not been inter- preted are becoming conscious. According to our hypothesis, patients have overcome their anxiety about the repressed contents before they come forth and so will not feel particularly anxious while they are emerging. Moreover, because they have overcome their anxiety about the contents, they will not need to defend themselves against experiencing them as they are coming forth, and so will experience them fully. According to the hypothesis that the con- tents come forth by pushing through the defenses, the patient will come in conflict with them, and so feel in- creased anxiety while they are coming forth. According to the hypothesis that they come forth because they are disguised (or isolated) the person will not feel anxious about them as they are emerging, and because they are disguised, will not experience them fully. Gassner located a number of mental contents that had been repressed in the first 10 sessions of Mrs. C’s analy- sis, but which came forth spontaneously (without being interpreted) after session 40. She then had judges, by use of rating scales, measure the patient’s degree of anxiety, and her level of experiencing, in the segments in which the contents were emerging. Her findings strongly sup- port our hypothesis. The patient was not anxious in these segments (by one measure, she was significantly less anxious than in random segments). Moreover, her level of experiencing in these segments was significantly higher than in random segments. Another research study was designed to test our hy- potheses about the patient’s unconscious testing of the therapist, and was carried out by George Silberschatz, using the transcripts of the first 100 sessions of Mrs. C’s analysis. From our study of Mrs. C, we had assumed that Mrs. C unconsciously made demands on the analyst so as to assure herself that she could not push him around. We assumed that she would be relieved when the analyst did not yield to her demands. Another group of investi- gators assumed that Mrs. C unconsciously made de- mands on the therapist in order to satisfy certain unconscious impulses. They assumed that Mrs. C would become more tense and anxious when the analyst did not yield to her demands. Silberschatz, whose research design was considered satisfactory to both groups of in- vestigators, demonstrated that when the analyst re- sponded to Mrs. C’s demands by not yielding to them, Mrs. C became less tense and anxious than before the analyst’s response. Silberschatz’ findings were statisti- cally significant. These findings strongly support our as- sumption that the patient is unconsciously testing the analyst by her demands, rather than unconsciously seek- ing the gratification of unconscious impulses. Another series of investigations was carried out by our group to test the hypothesis that patients benefit from any intervention, including any interpretation that they can use in their efforts to disprove their path- ogenic beliefs and to pursue the goals forbidden by them. We assumed that after a pro-plan intervention, the patients’ pathogenic beliefs are temporarily weak- ened. Therefore, we hypothesized that since patients maintain their repressions in obedience to their patho- genic beliefs, that after a pro-plan intervention, patients Control-Mastery Theory 547 would become a little more insightful, and a little less inhibited. We assumed, too, that anti-plan interven- tions would not help the patient, or might even set the patient back. The first step we took in preparation for studying the effects of pro-plan and anti-plan interventions was car- ried out by Joseph Caston, in 1986. It was to demon- strate that independent judges could agree reliably on a formulation of the patient’s plan. Caston broke down the patient’s plan formulation into four components: (1) the patient’s goals, (2) the obstructions (pathogenic beliefs) that impede patients in the pursuit of their goals, (3) the tests the patient might perform in their efforts to disprove their pathogenic beliefs, and (4) the insights patients could use in their efforts to disprove their pathogenic beliefs. Caston gave independent judges extensive lists of goals, pathogenic beliefs, tests, and insights, along with the condensed transcripts of the first 10 sessions of Mrs. C’s analysis. The judges were asked to read the transcripts, and then to rate the items in each category for their pertinence to the patient’s plan. Caston found that the judges did agree on a plan formulation, and that their agreement was statistically significant. Caston used his plan formulation to evaluate Mrs. C’s responses to pro-plan and anti-plan interventions. Caston tested the hypothesis that the patient would re- spond immediately to pro-plan interventions by be- coming bolder and more insightful, and that she would respond negatively to anti-plan interpretations by be- coming less insightful, and less bold. Caston found strong confirmation of this hypothesis in his pilot study; however in the replication study he found that the hypothesis held for pro-plan interventions, but not for anti-plan interventions. Apparently Mrs. C re- sponded favorably to pro-plan interventions but was not set back by anti-plan interventions. In a study of the last 100 sessions of Mrs. C’s analy- sis, Marshall Bush and Suzanne Gassner in 1986 tested the hypothesis that Mrs. C would demonstrate an im- mediate beneficial effect when offered pro-plan inter- ventions, but that she would be set back by anti-plan interventions. They found strong statistical support for this hypothesis. Our research group also studied the immediate ef- fects of pro-plan and anti-plan interpretations in brief psychotherapies. Polly Fretter, Jessica Broitman, and Lynn Davilla studied three 16-session psychotherapies to determine whether pro-plan interpretations had a beneficial effect. They used a new version of Caston’s method of obtaining a plan formulation that had been developed by John Curtis and George Silberschatz. In addition, unlike Caston, they did not study the effect of all interventions, but only of interpretations (that is, in- terventions designed to provide insight). Fretter showed that following a pro-plan interpreta- tion, the patient was less defensive, and so developed a statistically higher level of experiencing. Broitman demonstrated that after a pro-plan interpretation, the patient became more insightful, as measured by a generic insight scale. Her finding was statistically sig- nificant. Davilla, whose findings were statistically sig- nificant, demonstrated that the patient, following a pro-plan interpretation, moved toward his or her goals as defined in the patient’s plan formulation. Our group also studied the long-term (as opposed to the immediate) effect of pro-plan interventions. In the three cases investigated by Fretter, Broitman, and Davilla, it was demonstrated that the patient who was offered the highest percentage of pro-plan interpreta- tions did the best, as measured by a series of outcome measures, administered 6 months after the termination of treatment. The patient who received the second highest proportion did the second best, and the patient who received the lowest percentage did the worst. We also investigated the immediate effect of pro-plan interpretations on the patient’s pulse rate, skin conduc- tance, and body movement, in three brief psychothera- pies (these are not the same therapies studied by Fretter, Broitman, and Davilla). Nnamdi Pole demon- strated that pro-plan interpretations had an immediate effect on the patient’s pulse rate: the pulse rate de- creased. His research also showed that the patient sometimes responded very rapidly to pro-plan interpre- tations: The patient’s pulse rate would sometimes fall before the therapist finished an interpretation, and be- fore the patient consciously acknowledged the validity of the interpretation. Our research group has also studied brief psychother- apies to test the hypothesis that a patient shows an im- mediate favorable reaction when the therapist passes her tests. Curtis and Silberschatz, in the study of two brief psychotherapies, demonstrated that immediately after a passed test, the patient showed a higher level of experi- encing than before the passed test. In another study, Tom Kelly demonstrated that the patient responded to a passed test by an immediate decrease in tension, as meas- ured by a voice stress measure. In a study of one patient, Jerry Linsner showed that after a passed test the patient demonstrated an increase in pro-plan insight as defined in the patient’s plan formulation. In a study of three pa- tients, Jack Bugas demonstrated that after a passed test 548 Control-Mastery Theory the patient demonstrated a greater capacity to exert con- trol over regressive behavior. In our clinical work we observed that pathogenic be- liefs are often concerned with survivor guilt. Lynn O’Connor and Jack Berry conducted a series of investiga- tions concerning the role of survivor guilt in psy- chopathology. These studies were conducted by means of a new pencil-and-paper questionnaire, the Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire (IGQ), developed by O’Connor and others to measure survivor guilt and several other forms of guilt. The investigations, which were statistically sig- nificant, demonstrated that survivor guilt is highly corre- lated with feelings of shame, and also with feelings of fraudulence and pessimism. It correlates with a tendency to be submissive, and it is high in persons suffering from depression. It is high in recovering addicts and children of alcoholics. It predicted recidivism in a group of women on probation in Massachusetts. VI. SUMMARY The control-mastery theory assumes that patients’ problems stem from grim, frightening, unconscious, mal- adaptive beliefs. These beliefs, here called “pathogenic,” impede the patient’s functioning, and prevent the patient from pursuing highly adaptive goals. Patients suffer from these beliefs, and are highly motivated both to disprove them and to pursue the goals forbidden by them. The pa- tient works throughout therapy in accordance with an unconscious plan to accomplish these things. The thera- pist’s basic task, which follows from the above, is to help patients to disprove their pathogenic beliefs and to pur- sue their goals. The theory has been supported by nu- merous formal quantitative research studies. See Also the Following Articles Character Pathology ■ Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, Overview ■ Thought Stopping ■ Unconscious, The Further Reading Curtis, J., Silberschatz, G., Sampson, H., Weiss, J., & Rosen- berg, S. (1988). Developing reliable psychodynamic case formulations: An illustration of the plan diagnosis method. Psychotherapy, 25, 256–265. O’Connor, L. E., Berry, J. W., & Weiss, J. (1999). Interper- sonal guilt, shame, and psychological problems. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 18, 181–203. Sampson, H. (1992). The role of “real” experience in psy- chopathology and treatment. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2, 509–528. Silberschatz, G., Fretter, P., & Curtis, J. (1986). How do inter- pretations influence the process of psychotherapy? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 646–652. Weiss, J. (1993). How psychotherapy works: Process and tech- nique. New York: Guilford Press. Weiss, J., Sampson, H., & The Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group. (1986). The psychoanalytic process: The- ory, clinical observations, and empirical research. New York: Guilford Press. Control-Mastery Theory 549 I. Introduction II. Definition, History, and Contemporary Uses of the Corrective Emotional Experience III. Therapeutic Alliance, Corrective Emotional Experience, and the Outcome of Psychotherapy IV. Summary Further Reading GLOSSARY defenses A person’s habitual ways of protecting herself or himself against uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. expressive therapy Therapy aiming to uncover unconscious thoughts, beliefs, and feelings; often stirring up anxiety as new mental content is discovered. intrapsychic Within one person’s mind, not between people. psychoanalytic Pertaining to the school of thought that val- ues understanding the unconscious mind (e.g., via expres- sive therapy and psychoanalysis). supportive therapy Therapy geared at lowering anxiety, help- ing a patient feel better without necessarily understanding new things about himself or herself. transference The patient’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about the therapist that are derived from the relationships the patient had with earlier important relationships such as parents. I. INTRODUCTION In 1946, Franz Alexander wrote of the “corrective emotional experience” as the essential helping factor in psychotherapy. The corrective emotional experience (CEE) refers to the “reexposure of the patient, under more favorable circumstances, to the emotional situa- tions which he could not handle in the past.” The reex- posure is undertaken in psychotherapy via a reparative relationship with the therapist. Although considered by some to be a mainstay of psychotherapy, the CEE has had a very negative reputation in some circles, notably psychoanalytic ones. This has been perhaps because of some of Alexander’s specific practices with the CEE, such as active role-playing in the analytic session. Con- temporary studies of the elements of change and cure in psychotherapy suggest that a fresh look at the notion of the CEE reveals an important tool for the therapist. In this article, I will further define the term and put it in historical and contemporary contexts. I will describe the relationship between the CEE and the therapeutic alliance, which is the most robust predictor of good outcomes in psychotherapy. II. DEFINITION, HISTORY, AND CONTEMPORARY USES OF THE CORRECTIVE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE A. Franz Alexander’s Definition Alexander considered the basic principle of psy- chotherapy to be the patients’ reexperiencing of for- merly traumatic situations in the context of a Corrective Emotional Experience Deborah Fried Yale University 551 Encyclopedia of Psychotherapy VOLUME 1 Copyright 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved. therapeutic relationship with a new partner, the thera- pist, who generates an atmosphere of tolerance and equanimity. Given the new relationship, the patient re- lives problematic events from the past and develops new ways to respond. The prototype for this reexperi- encing was Jean Valjean, the hardened criminal in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” Alexander uses “reex- periencing” loosely, in that the therapeutic factor was the difference between the initial experiences and those with the therapist, in this case, a bishop. 1. Jean Valjean as the Patient Jean Valjean was described as an ex-convict who ex- perienced only cruelty in the world until he was star- tled by the kindness of a bishop he had been robbing. He discovers the effect of this encounter when he meets a little boy who dropped a coin. The ex-convict stepped on the coin, refusing to let the boy retrieve it. The boy ran off, and overcome with remorse, Valjean frantically attempted to find him, return the money, and thereby redeem himself. He did not find the boy but was, as Alexander quoted Hugo, able to start “a colossal and final struggle … between his wickedness and that man’s [the bishop’s] goodness.” Alexander noted that the commonplace kindness of the bishop to a nasty ex-convict would not normally deserve our attention, but that the episode with the boy and Hugo’s ensuing psychological explanation of Val- jean’s conversion were a prescient observation about the effects of psychotherapy. The catalyst to the crimi- nal’s change was the overwhelming nature of the bishop’s generosity. Such generosity threw the crimi- nal’s expectations of people’s responses into total disar- ray. Alexander noted that the emotional balance established by the criminal was based on his cruelty in response to his repeated experiences of the cruelty of the world he lived in. When the bishop broke that rule, Valjean experienced “the most formidable assault by which he had yet been shaken.” In this state, he mis- treated the little boy as if to reestablish the familiar pat- terns of cruelty by which he had organized his world. But the experience with the bishop so challenged that pattern that he no longer saw the world this way. Alexander clarifies that a single experience of this sort could not “undo the cumulative effects of lifelong maltreatment” unless the criminal originally had a de- cent conscience in the first place, one that was later se- verely tarnished by years of hardship. The originally intact conscience rendered the criminal a good candi- date for the very brief “psychotherapy,” this experience with the bishop and the little boy. 2. The Role of the Therapist Alexander specifies that the main job of the thera- pist is to offer a response to the patient that is utterly unlike the response expected from an authoritative person. Thus, the patient has a repeated opportunity to face, under more favorable circumstances, emo- tional experiences that were previously intolerable but can now be dealt with in a different manner. He noted that a patient’s intellectual understanding of his problems would be insufficient to their cure, that the feelings stirred up in the therapeutic relationship were a mainstay that enables a patient to change. Alexander described several steps to the process of treating emotional conflict. First, the future patient experiences a number of problematic events, emo- tionally distressing to the point of being traumatic. The patient comes to expect trouble, especially from significant others around him. The therapist now steps in with a different attitude than the patient ex- pected, and the patient is surprised. The bishop was kind to the man who was robbing him. In being treated better than he deserved, the criminal’s armour was chinked—he could no longer perceive people as deserving his meanness, and so began a transforma- tion of his character, an apocryphal tale used by Alexander to describe this new concept, the corrective emotional experience. Alexander emphasized that the therapist is not neu- tral, but always maintains a helpful attitude. He also noted that the reactions of the therapist should often not be spontaneous, lest they repeat the parents’ prob- lematic reactions to the budding patient, for example, “with impatience or solicitude which caused the neuro- sis” in the first place. Alexander was referring to pa- tients’ tendency to elicit from those around them characteristic responses. The job of the therapist is to know when to respond unspontaneously, to disconfirm the patient’s expectations, no matter how tenaciously the patient pulls for them. B. Reactions to the CEE Several problems with the CEE concept have discouraged its use over the decades. Four specific problems will be discussed: Alexander’s use of med- ications in the sessions, the lack of applicability of the CEE to all kinds of patients, the use of role-play- ing to create the CEE in the therapy, and the history of a disdainful attitude toward supportive techniques, as the CEE has generally although erroneously been described. 552 Corrective Emotional Experience 1. “Narcosynthesis” Alexander suggested that drug-induced states of mind could be ideal for the CEE to unfold in therapy. Under narcotic treatment, patients could relive in fan- tasy the past dangers that they had been unable to mas- ter. With the therapist present, the patient’s anxiety would be reduced and the patient could become better able to face the previously intolerable situation. Today, in session, use of medications in this way, “narcosyn- thesis,” is rare, although “reliving” the past with the therapist is a viable strategy for some clinicians, as dis- cussed below. Writing in the 1940s, Alexander had far less avail- able to him in the way of a pharmacopoeia. Currently, disorders of mood and thought, with symptoms such as mood instability, psychosis, anxiety, and depression are usually addressed with medications. Any current discussion of the CEE makes most sense with the proper use of medications in mind, because no rela- tionship between therapist and patient can begin until the symptoms are manageable. Ironically, although Alexander’s use of insession medications has little fol- lowing, the general use of medicines is ubiquitous and psychotherapy can often progress only because of their effects. 2. The Problem of Applying the CEE Detailed review of past experiences is often a way psychotherapy begins. How such review is used subse- quently in the treatment varies with patient and clini- cian. There is controversy about the efficacy of this method for the treatment of some disorders, given the potential risks that an attempted CEE could bring. For some patients with posttraumatic stress disorder, symptoms can worsen after reexposure to past traumas. In contrast, some recent research by Edna Foa and oth- ers shows that it can be very helpful when a patient therapeutically reexperiences past trauma. The astute clinician carefully follows the patient’s state of mind in sessions and knows when reviewing certain material would be likely to help the patient. 3. The Problem of Role-Playing Alexander was in line with some current psychoana- lytic thinking in his emphasis on the patient’s relation- ship with the therapist as the curative factor in the therapy. He ran afoul of psychoanalytic communities with his approach to the patient via role-playing in psy- chotherapy. Alexander (and his followers) would at- tempt to revisit traumatic interpersonal events in a patient’s life by taking the role of the previously trau- matizing other (e.g., parent, teacher, boss) and enact- ing scenarios designed to counter these early patho- genic experiences. In the therapeutic setting, the therapist would facilitate reality testing and so enable the patient to feel and respond differently than in the past. The goal was to allow the patient to have the new experience in the safety of the therapist’s office and apply the learning outside the office in his daily life. These psychotherapies were brief in duration, a num- ber of months, and part of the mission was to use role- playing in order to shorten therapies that were growing increasingly unwieldy in their multiyear duration. Psychoanalysts continue to criticize role-playing as a manipulation of the transference, forcing the patient to notice the “goodness” of the therapist contrasted with the “badness” of previously hurtful others. Howard Levine, writing an annotated list of essential reading in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in 1995, called this play acting the bete noire of psychoanalysis, and noted that role-playing contrasted with standard psychoanalytic thoughts of how therapy produces change. Role-play- ing can be seen as putting the patient in an artificial po- sition, having to respond to the therapist’s theatrics rather than reaching greater awareness about his or her own mental life in the context of the relationship with the therapist. 4. The Problem of CEE as a Supportive Technique Different kinds of psychotherapies have different aims, which can be described on a supportive–expres- sive continuum. Supportive techniques shore up a pa- tient’s defenses; expressive techniques analyze defenses and uncover unconscious material. Support in psy- chotherapy serves to decrease a patients’ anxiety, helps patients feel better about past actions and events, and enables patients to appreciate their skills in adapting to events around them. In psychoanalytic terms, what is supported is the patient’s ego function. The patient is not necessarily helped to understand more about his or her unconscious mind via supportive techniques (but is only able to do so when adequately supported). An example of a supportive comment is: “You seemed to have worked very hard to finish that project and yet the professor crushed you with his comments about it” rather than the relatively unsupportive but more ex- ploratory “How do you understand the professor’s re- sponse to your work?” This is relatively unsupportive, but not absolutely; while there is support in the thera- pist’s attention to and wondering about the story the patient tells, this is an example of expressive technique, Corrective Emotional Experience 553 aimed to uncover more than what the patient already knows, thinks and feels. The generally supportive experience of being ac- cepted is a main feature of the corrective emotional ex- perience, but the emphasis on support was another strike against the CEE. Historically, although not uni- versally, support has been considered a risky if not poor psychoanalytic technique, undermining the possibility for patients to further their understanding of what had been previously unconscious. Anxiety can be a motiva- tor for further self-exploration. When patients are feel- ing supported, they can relinquish the anxious mood but perhaps also any interest in understanding what they feel and why and how they create trouble in their life. When the goal of treatment is to allay a symptom such as anxiety rather than foster deeper understand- ing, support is a predominant tool. In psychoanalytic endeavors, anxiety is considered an ally to the thera- peutic mission when it motivates the patient to think in new ways and uncover new mental material. As Alexander’s use of Jean Valjean as a case example demonstrates, the CEE is both supportive and expres- sive. In this case, a seemingly supportive move by the bishop was actually experienced as quite anxiety pro- ducing for the thief. The thief’s capacity for remorse, introspection, and reparative attempts evolved only after his perceptions of the world were shaken, after the bishop startled him with persistent kindness. The thief and the bishop exemplify naturally corrective experi- ences of life with other people, consistent with Alexan- der’s note that the CEE need not take place only in the relationship with the therapist; there are opportunities for corrective experiences within the relationships of the daily life of the patient. Given these problems with and misunderstandings about the CEE, it is little wonder that it has not always been considered a useful construct. Thoughtful ap- praisal of how Alexander defined and used the CEE brings us to the next consideration: how the CEE can be used within the context of the therapeutic alliance. III. THERAPEUTIC ALLIANCE, CORRECTIVE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE, AND THE OUTCOME OF PSYCHOTHERAPY A. The Therapeutic Alliance 1. Definition of the Therapeutic Alliance The therapeutic alliance is the connection between patient and therapist, the mutual agreement to work together on tasks related to the patient’s well-being. The alliance is a joint sense of mission, collaboration, trust in the other, and hope. With such an alliance, the patient expects the therapist will understand him, tol- erate him, and help him understand himself better and then feel better, now and in the future. The feeling of being understood, cared about, and cared for is an important emotional state in which to embark on psychotherapy, a sine qua non for most pa- tients to even begin considering candid revelation to an utter stranger, the therapist. To feel allied with another person can itself be corrective. When the match be- tween therapist and patient is successful, a surprising, impressive amount of work can be accomplished. It is no surprise then that the single factor in psychotherapy that explains the outcome of the psychotherapy has been repeatedly demonstrated to be the therapeutic al- liance. 2. The Therapeutic Alliance and Psychotherapy Outcome Studies Psychotherapy is difficult to study. Psychotherapy outcome studies show that psychotherapy does work: patients, family members, therapists, and neutral re- search judges agree, based on a generous variety of measures such as symptom checklists, mental health rating scales, and measures of ability to function at home and at work. The one element common to the successful psychotherapies is the therapeutic alliance. The repeated showing of the alliance as the main pre- dictor of good outcome leads scholars and clinicians to consider the alliance the “quintessential” aspect of all psychotherapies. B. The CEE as a Tool for the Therapist Who Has a Therapeutic Alliance with the Patient Psychotherapy takes place only in the context of an adequate therapeutic alliance. In this circumstance, the therapist has access to various tools such as supporting the patient’s better efforts at self-understanding, ques- tioning the wisdom of others, medicating the more se- vere symptoms, and using the CEE to alert the patient to a new perspective on interpersonal relationships. In this context, the surprises of the corrective emotional experience can unfold as the therapist disconfirms the expected responses that the patient has long come to elicit from others. Much that is inherent in psychotherapy would be an example of the CEE tool: the therapist being timely, in speech and presence; having reasonably pleasant facial 554 Corrective Emotional Experience expressions when greeting the patient; looking at and listening the patient; remembering the content of the last session and the dreams and stories of previous dis- cussions; knowing the important anniversary dates in the patient’s life, and so on. These techniques tell the patient he or she is valued, worthy of listening to, and being helped. The CEE as a tool differs from the nar- rower specificity of other tools, such as interpretive comments about material previously out of the patient’s conscious awareness. Once thought by psychoanalysts and analytically oriented clinicians to be the most cru- cial technique for therapeutic success, interpretations are now considered by some to be another valid tool but not the most valuable one. Hanna Levenson, in her 1995 review of time-limited therapies, considers the CEE to be the “modernist” way of construing the his- torically important accurate and precise interpretation of unconscious material, emphasizing the relational rather than the intrapsychic in psychotherapy. The im- portance attributed to relational over interpretive tools of the therapist has increased in recent years, concor- dant with the repeated findings of good therapeutic outcome based on the relationship rather than on the accuracy of interpretation. C. The Therapist’s Judgment The importance of the therapeutic alliance, the ther- apist’s most basic tool, and the use of the CEE as a spe- cialized tool are not to suggest that the therapist is without judgmental capacity. Therapy would not be worth much were that so. Rather, the therapist offers a reasonably balanced ear and may certainly disagree with and disapprove of some of the patient’s behaviors and plans. For example, a patient prone to feeling enti- tled to more than her due, who treats others with con- tempt, has her CEE when the therapist enables her to hear her disdain and consider how this stance puts people off and has probably contributed to the patient’s need for the therapy. IV. SUMMARY The CEE as an explicit concept has been with thera- pists since the 1940s. It has elements of both support- ive and expressive psychotherapeutic technique. The corrective emotional experience is felt by the patient who expects certain responses from people but is in- stead surprised by the therapist’s disconfirmation of the expected response. It is a tool available to the therapist who has formed a good therapeutic alliance with the patient. In its more dramatic incarnations, such as when induced by medications in a therapy session, it has been eschewed by psychoanalysts. More gently in- troduced, it is part of every psychotherapy that has helped a patient and merits a place in future psy- chotherapy research studies that can further the under- standing of how and why psychotherapy works. Acknowledgments I want to express my appreciation to Jonathan Fried for editorial assistance, and to colleagues Susan Bers, Lisa Marcus, Nancy Olson, and Joan Wexler for in- sightful comments about the CEE. See Also the Following Articles Effectiveness of Psychotherapy ■ History of Psychotherapy ■ Outcome Measures ■ Role-Playing ■ Supportive- Expressive Dynamic Psychotherapy ■ Time-Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy ■ Transference ■ Working Alliance Further Reading Alexander, F., & French, T. M. (1946). Psychoanalytic psy- chotherapy: Principles and application. New York: The Ronald Press Company. Baker, R. (1993). The Patient’s Discovery of the Psychoana- lyst as a New Object. International Journal of Psychoanaly- sis, December 74 (Pt 6), 1223–1233. Foa, E. B. (2000). Psychosocial treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal Clinical Psychiatry, 61 (Suppl. 5), 43-8; discussion 49–51. Kantrowitz, J. L. (1995). The beneficial aspects of the patient- analyst match. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, April 76 (Pt 2), 299–313. Levenson, H. (1995). Time limited dynamic psychotherapy. Basic Books, New York. Levine, H. (1995). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In M. H. Sacks, W. H. Sledge, & C. Warren (Eds.). Core readings in psychiatry (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: APA Press. Martin D. J., Garske, J. P., & Davis, M. K. (2000). Relation of the therapeutic alliance with outcome and other variables: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68, 438–450. Rockland, L. H. (1989). Supportive psychotherapy: A psycho- dynamic approach. New York: Basic Books. Winston, A., Pinsker H., & McCullough, L. (1986). A review of supportive psychotherapy. Hospital and Community Psy- chiatry, 37, 1105–1114. Corrective Emotional Experience 555 I. Description of Treatment II. Theoretical Bases III. Empirical Studies IV. Summary Further Reading GLOSSARY delayed reinforcement Reinforcement occurs after some pe- riod of delay following a correct response to a target be- havior. generalization The result of behavior change occurring under different conditions, settings, and behaviors from the original targeted conditions, settings, and behaviors. maintenance The maintaining of behaviors over time follow- ing an intervention. natural communities of reinforcement Reinforcement that is available in the normal, day-to-day environment. prompt Verbal directions, modeling, or physical guidance that help an individual initiate a response. self-regulation Involves observation or monitoring of one’s own behavior, judgmental processes concerning one’s own performance, and reactions of the individual to his or her behavior and performance. social reinforcement Reinforcement that can include physical contact such as hugs or verbal statements such as approval when an individual engages in an appropriate response. tangible reinforcement Objects, such as toys or stickers for young children, given when an individual engages in an appropriate response. target behavior The behavior selected for change. Correspondence training involves developing the re- lationship between children’s verbal accounts of behav- ior and their actual behavior, between saying and doing. According to Ruth Baer, J. Williams, Patricia Osnes, and Trevor Stokes in 1983, correspondence training is training in “promise keeping.” I. DESCRIPTION OF TREATMENT The focus of correspondence training is on verbaliza- tions used to mediate behaviors. According to Ruth Baer, J. Williams, Patricia Osnes, and Trevor Stokes in 1983, “reinforcement is made contingent on both promising to engage in a target response and then actu- ally doing so, or on truthfully reporting past actions” (p. 479). In general, the treatment involves asking the child what he or she plans to do in a certain situation (e.g., “Are you going to talk to your teacher today?”). If the child responds positively to the question asked, the adult restates the behavior or tells the child to engage in the behavior (e.g., “Ok, you will talk to your teacher today”). If the child does not spontaneously respond to the initial question, the adult prompts the child until the child responds. After the child has had an opportunity to engage in the behavior the child is provided with feedback re- garding his or her behavior. If the child engaged in the behavior (i.e., talked to the teacher), the child is verbally, Correspondence Training Karen T. Carey California State University, Fresno 557 Encyclopedia of Psychotherapy VOLUME 1 Copyright 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved. [...]... program with rational-emotive therapy Professional Psychotherapy Research Practice, 18, 140 – 144 Lazar, S G., & Gabbard, G O (1997) The cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, 6 (4) , 307–3 14 Lieberman, R P Mueser, K T., & Wallace, C J (1986) So., cial skills training for schizophrenic individuals at risk for relapse American Journal of Psychiatry, 143 , 523–526 Linden,... elsewhere in this Encyclopedia The efforts to show that psychotherapy is cost-effective for a variety of conditions has been largely successful, if not exhaustive This article reviews some of the basic ideas of cost-effectiveness generally, as well as specifically for psychotherapy, and indicates some of the questions that the future must address Formal features of the structure of the field of psychotherapy, ... economic burden of depression in 1990 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 54( 11), 40 5 41 8 Johannesson, M., Agewall, S., Hartford, M., Hedner, T., & Fagerberg, B (1995) The cost-effectiveness of a cardiovascular multiple-risk-factor intervention programme in treated hypertensive men Journal of Internal Medicine, 237, 19–26 Klarreich, S., DiGuiseppe, R., & DiMattia, D (1987) Cost-effectiveness of an employee... carried out a survey of the literature on the economic impact of psychotherapy published between 19 84 and 19 94 This review of 18 studies, 10 with random assignment and 8 without random assignment, found that 80% of the former and 100% of the latter suggested that psychotherapy reduces total costs This review found that psychotherapy appears to be cost-effective, especially for patients with severe disorders,... by 33% and partial psychiatric hospitalization increased by 45 % Two other studies demonstrate cost-effectiveness by virtue of a reduction in lost workdays Klarreich and colleagues found that providing rational-emotive psychotherapy through an EAP of one large company led to a decrease in absenteeism from 10 to 3 days per year per employee equal to a decrease of $1,0 54 in the annual cost of absenteeism... measure of the sensitivity of the utilization of benefit to the generosity of the insurance benefit A particular intervention or service is said to be elastic to the extent that its use is influenced by how much the patient must pay out of pocket as opposed to how much the patient wants/needs the benefit Encyclopedia of Psychotherapy VOLUME 1 I INTRODUCTION Costs have preoccupied the purchasers of care... terms It can be included in the denominator of the cost-effectiveness ratio if it conceptualized and measured as a dimension of QALY If the experience of the treatment is included as part of the effect of care, then it will be difficult to monetize the dimension of time, and it probably should be considered a dimension of QALY 565 Cost Effectiveness Another class of costs that can be considered either in... approaches because of the difficulty in expressing the outcome variables of symptoms, quality of life, and mortality experience in monetary terms The principles of CEA for medical and mental health programs in general apply to psychotherapy efforts in particular A Perspective One major issue in the assessment of costs and effectiveness is the perspective of the study that determines the breadth of what is being... clarity of interpretation of results, one consensus outcome of CEAs is the cost-effectiveness ratio, an expression of the cost per unit of effect or the difference in the cost between the 5 64 Cost Effectiveness two compared treatments divided by the difference in effectiveness of the two compared treatments The costeffectiveness ratio is the incremental cost of obtaining a particular effect from one... received the psychotherapy had fewer subsequent lost workdays that more than offset the cost of providing the therapy VI CONCLUSION Although there are too few large-scale studies addressing the cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy for specific diagnostic groups of patients, we can arrive at some important impressions from the studies that we do have Those that exist do confirm that, for many conditions psychotherapy . Alexander’s use of med- ications in the sessions, the lack of applicability of the CEE to all kinds of patients, the use of role-play- ing to create the CEE in the therapy, and the history of a disdainful. Cost-ef- fectiveness of an employee assistance program with ra- tional-emotive therapy. Professional Psychotherapy Research Practice, 18, 140 – 144 . Lazar, S. G., & Gabbard, G. O. (1997). The cost-effectiveness of. in- troduced, it is part of every psychotherapy that has helped a patient and merits a place in future psy- chotherapy research studies that can further the under- standing of how and why psychotherapy